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"The Warrior's Way"

Dong-gun Jang, a red-headed Kate Bosworth, Geoffrey Rush and Danny Houston star in this film about an assassin forced to hide in the American Old West after refusing an assignment, all of which leads to an epic showdown between cowboys and ninjas. Opens Dec. 3. (Published Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2010)

The gamine-like starlet of “Blue Crush” and “Superman Returns” may look like a slender and girly little thing, but don’t get into a knife fight with her. For her new film “The Warrior’s Way,” a visually arresting martial arts/Western hybrid, Bosworth threw herself into the role of a free-spirited frontier femme fatale with a way with the blade.

“From the moment that I went to New Zealand, the first thing that I was wanting to jump into immediately was the martial arts element,” Bosworth told PopcornBiz. “Because I'd never taken any kind of martial arts and was completely unfamiliar with it.”

Bosworth said it took time to hone her knife-throwing and swordplay skills.

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“I don't know if I'm particularly the most coordinated person on the planet," she said. "When you have a sword in your hand that you're having to swing around and then having to center yourself and then move the other way, it's so much harder than you think. Especially turns, twirls, holding your balance and also having to focus.

“The routine that was the most terrifying to me in a way was the sort of frenzied love dance scene,” she recalled. “I started out just being horrible, and then started getting better the more time that I did it. It was just like anything: repetition and practice and being tough on yourself when it comes to athletics.”

Despite her newfound skills, the actress said she’s not accepting any challenges to throw down with daggers in the wake of the film. “I think that I've forgotten everything! I haven't really kept up with the whole knife-fighting thing,” she laughed, admitting that even her ability to hang ten has suffered in the years since her breakthrough in “Blue Crush.”

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“I haven't surfed in so long and that's so disappointing,” Bosworth said. “When surfers come up to me, they're so excited and I feel like I really let them down when I say, 'I haven't surfed in so long.' I feel like I need to apologize and then I go, 'But I did at the time. I was so into it,' and I overcompensate.”